Vice President Cristina Fernández of Argentina received a $1 billion fraud conviction and sentence.

Cristina Fernández, the vice president of Argentina, was found guilty of fraud and given a lifelong ban from holding public office in addition to a six-year jail term on Tuesday. The fraud plan included embezzling $1 billion via public works projects when she was president.

The Peronist leader was found guilty of fraud by a three-judge panel, but the accusation of leading a criminal organization—for which a 12-year jail term might have been imposed—was dismissed. It was the first time a vice president of Argentina was found guilty of a crime while in office.

Fernández reacted angrily to the decision, claiming she was a victim of a “judicial mafia.” However, she also said later that she will not seek re-election to the President, which she previously held from 2007 to 2015.

The verdict on appeals, which might take years, will determine whether the punishment is final. She will continue to be safe from arrest in the meanwhile.

With a statewide strike, Fernández’s supporters pledged to bring the nation to a standstill. They jammed up downtown Buenos Aires and marched up to the federal courthouse, pounding on police barricades while playing drums and yelling.

Fernández categorically refuted each and every charge. She was accused of fraudulently awarding public works contracts to a construction entrepreneur who was intimately associated with her family. She has been Argentina’s main leader this century.

In the South American country, where politics can be a blood sport and the 69-year-old populist leader is either adored or despised, the judgement is guaranteed to widen existing rifts.

She was innocent, according to President Alberto Fernández, who is not related to his vice president, and her conviction was “the outcome of a trial in which the least forms of due process were not taken care of,” according to a tweet he sent.

According to the prosecution, Fernández defrauded 51 public works contracts to Lázaro Báez, a construction entrepreneur and early ally of her and her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who presided over the country from 2003 to 2007 until passing away unexpectedly in 2010.

Twelve additional people, including Báez and officials from Fernández’s presidency from 2007 to 2015, were charged with participating in the plot. Báez and her public works secretary, José López, were both given six-year sentences by the panel. Most of the other people received shorter sentences.

The Báez firm, according to prosecutors Diego Luciani and Sergio Mola, was founded in order to steal money from projects that were fraudulently tendered, had cost overruns, and in many instances were never finished. After the Kirchners’ 12 years in power, the corporation allegedly vanished, according to them.

In such situations, judges in Argentina often deliver convictions and punishments first before providing an explanation of their reasoning. In February, the panel’s final ruling is anticipated. The decision may then be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, a procedure that might take several years.

Following the conclusion of her vice presidential term on December 10, 2023, Fernández announced on her YouTube account that she will not run for another post. “I won’t be running for anything, neither the presidency or the Senate. No ballot will have my name on it. On December 10, I complete, and then I go home,” she remarked.

Politicians and pundits have underlined that while her appeal is resolved, Fernández would be free to compete for any official post and get immunity arrest by winning. These offices ranged from a place in Congress to the president.

Roberto Bacman, head of Argentina’s Center for Public Opinion Studies, a pollster, described her revelation as “Cristina usually surprises.” But he said that “she will keep battling.” She declares that she won’t hide and positions herself in the middle of the conflict.

He added it is still unclear if the Peronist movement would try to persuade Fernández to change her mind.

Director of the political consulting firm Diagnóstico Poltico Patricio Giusto predicted Fernández would intensify her “victimisation strategy and equating herself” with Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, the leftist politician who was recently elected president of Brazil after having his corruption conviction overturned by a court.

The vice president, who replaced her as president from 2015 to 2019, said throughout the legal proceedings that she was a victim of “lawfare” and that the judiciary was a tool of the opposition media.

The only active leader of the Peronist movement’s leftist movement is still Fernández. According to Bacman’s research, 62% of Argentines want her out and 38% would stand behind her no matter what.

Other legal actions against her are still underway, such as a money-laundering accusation that also includes her son and daughter.